Meet Mark Dacascos. As of this writing he is 49 years old, and a reasonably successful actor/martial artist. He has also portrayed more ethnicities than you can find in the average neighbourhood in small-town Western New York.
The roles above are, as far as I can tell, as follows:
- Crying Freeman (1995): a skilled Japanese assassin
- China Strike Force (2005): a Chinese man (role unknown)
- Le Pacte des loups [Brotherhood of the Wolf] (2001): an Iroquois man
- Scorcher (2002): a colonel, presumably part Caucasian
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (S2E17, 2002): a monk, “nonnative, from Thailand.”
- Iron Chef America (2004-present): the nephew of the original Japanese chairman, Takeshi Kaga.
These do not include two other roles I could not find images/video for: Johnny Ramirez in the 1994 film Dragstrip Girl, presumably part Hispanic, and Moku, which is a Polynesian name, in an episode of the mid-90s TV show One West Wakiki.
Allow me to clear up the man’s ancestry. His mother is of Irish and Japanese descent, and his father is various parts Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese. That being said, his portraying both Iroquois and and Polynesian men is certainly a problem. What’s unbelievable, though, is that he’s got almost nothing on Sir Ben Kingsley.
Now I’m going to simply label the ethnicity of each role to the best of my knowledge, since this is an exhausting enough task as it is:
- Gandhi (1982): Indian
- Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1985): English
- Harem (1985): Arab
- Pascali’s Island (1988): unknown, possibly Turkish
- Testimony — The Story of Shostakovich (1988): Russian
- Bugsy (1991): Belarusian
- Schindler’s List (1993): Jewish
- Joseph (1995): Egyptian
- Sexy Beast (2000): unknown, British
- House of Sand and Fog (2003): Iranian
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010): Persian (Iranian)
- Hugo (2011): French
Ben Kingsley is half-Indian and half-English, with his maternal grandmother maybe being of Russian or German Jewish descent. That being said, compared to Mark Dacascos this guy is like a freakin’ one-man United Nations.
The reason I’ve compiled both of these lists is hopefully clear. These are two men who have covered a very broad range of various ethnicities without being directly representative of many of them. To be fair to Dacascos, he is part Asian and has taken many Asian roles, whereas Kingsley shares no Middle Eastern blood and has portrayed many men who live in that region. To move this along, what is it that I’m I trying to say about casting?
I am clearly a person who supports the casting of more people of colour [POCs], and these men certainly fall under that category. I am also a fan of authenticity, however. Authenticity is what would have had half the cast of West Side Story as actual Puerto Ricans instead of slightly tanned Caucasians. The thing is that it also clashes with the idea that “whoever is best for the role should get it.”
Have you seen Ben Kingsley’s list of honours? The man is a knight. He’s also been nominated for and won countless of awards. Far be it from me to say that he is not an extremely talented man.
But is he an Arab?
Does it make sense to give the man a role that could have gone to a Syrian actor? He obviously has the acting ability to bring to the character, but isn’t he taking the place of any number of actual actors of Arab descent who have few enough major roles, villainous or otherwise, available as it is?
Later this fall Kingsley will be appearing in the film adaptation of Ender’s Game, playing the role of Mazer Rackham. Anyone who is familiar with the novel knows that the character is a New Zealander, and half-Maori. Below is a promo picture for the film.
As you can see, the filmmakers have given him Maori facial tattoos to key into that part of his heritage. As a little context as to what author Orson Scott Card originally envisioned for the character, he mentioned in a 1998 interview that he could see Will Smith or Andre Braugher in the role.
But it’s difficult, because on the other hand we have an example of a person who is actually a half-Maori New Zealander. On the left you can see one half of The Flight of the Conchords, Jermaine Clement, the exact same racial mix that Mazer Rackham is. Clearly there are certain expectations that audiences have, and on a number of levels the tattoos shown above pander to them. If you told people that Jermaine was half-Maori I am going to bet that most of them would not believe you; it simply doesn’t meet their preconceived notions of what that should look like. Heck, I wrote a whole article about what I expected from the portrayal of the superpowered king of a fictitious African nation.
What we need to understand, though, is that expectations are something that we can change using media. The most high-profile Arab character out there right now [and correct me if I’m wrong] is Abed of NBC’s Community. Abed is played by Danny Pudi, a man of Indian and Polish descent. Similarly, Sayid Jarrah of Lost was likewise portrayed by Indian actor Naveen Andrews. This is what makes people believe that that Arabs look like Indians, and if casting was done with authenticity and accuracy in mind people would know better. Expectations would change.
The thing is, as my infographics [if you want to call them that] of Dacascos and Kingsley’s film careers would suggest, Hollywood doesn’t care about that. It’s not even simply that Chinese and Japanese people look alike, it’s that an Asian man with slightly darker skin can play both races as well as Native American [or First Nations person, as we Canadians say]. On that same note we have a half-Indian actor who can portray arguably the most famous Indian to have ever lived and died, as well as an Egyptian and a Russian.
In a way this is colourblind casting, something that I ostensibly have no problem with. The thing is, it’s also just laziness. Dacascos is a pretty good mix of Asian ethnicities, so lets cast him as our new Chairman on Iron Chef America. Why? Is it because he’s a martial artist? Why not hire an actual Japanese person who, as an added bonus, actually knows something about food?
This isn’t a matter of filmmakers and television producers “not seeing colour,” it’s a matter of them sticking with what they know and opting for who’s available [Dacascos] and who’s well known [Kingsley]. POC are being passed over for actors who can portray a broad range of people groups, and there’s something wrong with that. I’m not saying every Korean role must always go to a Korean, but they could at least try looking a little harder.
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You’re probably not expecting any comments on a random short article you wrote twelve years ago, and maybe you’ll never see this, and maybe you’ve been better educated on this topic since then, as it’s thankfully gotten a lot more attention, insight, and some improvement, since, but:
You do make a some good points! Given all the ethnic and cultural intermingling of India and Arab countries due their proximity, I’d, kind embarrassingly, never even considered that it’s not great to have Indian actors play Arab roles. I never even thought to look into that because, as you said, hollywood has basically convinced most of us that those two wildly varying ethnic backgrounds look basically the same.
I only found this article bc I saw a random gifset of Brotherhood of the Wolf, looked it up out of curiosity and went ????? when I saw that the Iroquois man was being played by someone not even just from the wrong tribe (tho given the hoops indigenous actors have to jump through to gain roles and establish a career at all, I’m not even sure is considered a problem by the communities themselves- if you look at the ethnic backgrounds of actors in indigenous produced/directed/written media, like Rez Dogs for example, the tribal origin is all over the place, but the cast is all actually indigenous American) but who wasn’t indigenous at all.
Which like, I guess this was predating things like the extremely offensive casting of a literal white person as the indigenous lead in twilight, and only a few of the other native characters in the series being played by actual native actors (I mean not even touching on the issues of the story itself lmao. I once hate watched twilight w a Potawatomi friend, who, while deeply pissed at the casting, did still enjoy the nostalgia of it. The Twighlight marathon was her idea. I care a lot about representation, particularly indigenous representation, as those communities have been so heinously marginalized and under represented, and many of them have had a huge impact on my own life.
That said: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a half-Indian actor playing a fully Indian character. We say “half this, part that, etc” but you can’t actually cut a person in a half, and that’s a source of turmoil for a lot of mixed people, never feeling like they fit anywhere. But the truth of it is, if you’re a significant part of one ethnicity, you are that ethnicity, not just part. A person who is half Indian is Indian, and saying otherwise is dismissive of that person’s identity.
The line is blurry, the issue is complicated, and it’s usually best to listen to the voices of the people actually involved and advocate for what they feel is best, which is what I’m trying to do here. I also don’t think that Dacascos, who has significant Japanese and Chinese decent, playing either of those ethnicities is a problem either. In fact, I’d say that you saying he’s not an “actual Japanese person” is actually kind of offensive. Mixed people get to embody as much of their history, culture and heritage as they want in a way that feels right to them. A full quarter Japanese is still very much Japanese, because, again, you can’t actual cut a real human person into pieces.
Big, complicated issue that varies person to person, culture to culture. For example, I’m half Jewish, which is different from being POC and mixed POC obvy, but like, does my Jewish family think I’m not Jewish bc only one of my parents is? No. Do the millions of actual fucking Nazis, who exist more than ever for some insane reason, in this country, the ones that have managed to rise to power like Musk and pose a real serious threat to my people care that I’m only half Jewish? No. They’d still prefer me dead!
I’m making this comment based loosely on what I’ve read, my own experience with friends, family, mentors. My own experience listening. There are people out there better informed than me, but I’m here, procrastinating trying to go back to sleep, and no one else is gonna say it on this old ass article so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But I’m not the one who wrote and published said article. So while it’s good that you were talking about this at all in 2013 and bringing attention to it, maybe do some more research on the thoughts of the people most effected by this upsetting, ongoing trend in film and television for your next article
Hi, Phi! I appreciate the comment! It’s always fun, though mostly cringey if I’m being honest, to read through something you put together twelve full years ago.
You make a really great point that a person of mixed descent (and I am one) should rightfully be able to play roles they share a background with. I also think you’re right on the money when you say “the line is blurry, the issue is complicated.” Hailee Steinfeld’s maternal grandfather is half Filipino and half African-American. Would it then be fitting for her to portray a character that is intended to be fully either of those two ethnicities?
If I had written this article now I’m sure I would have written a few paragraphs on how much colourism and Hollywood’s tendency to pander to Western standards of beauty impacts casting. There are far too many examples of roles that, while they aren’t explicitly whitewashed, are awarded to actors that just so happen to have a white parent (Naomi Scott in the 2019 ALADDIN, Henry Golding in CRAZY RICH ASIANS, etc). Four years after I wrote this I covered THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and how Hollywood, whether wittingly or not, controls our perception of both history and the world around us (old Western films have largely diminished the presence of both Black and Latino people in that time period).
I’m glad you’ve had so many conversations with your friends, family, and mentors. Given how much I was writing on this particular topic in my late teens and early twenties I did much of the same, in particular on forums where other POCs would bemoan the state of the entertainment industry. That’s all to say that I was doing research at the time of this writing, in particular with those who admitted to being affected, and continue to do so.
The purpose of this blog was always to foster conversation, so I’m very grateful for your varying thoughts on this topic! I like to think I’ve matured and learned more in the past decade or so and I hope that doesn’t stop anytime soon-